Ep16 - Rich Makover—Leadership, Resilience, and Sales Mastery
Episode Summary
Rich Makover, a fractional Chief Revenue Officer and executive coach at TechCXO, shares his journey from Penn State lacrosse player to CPA to sales leadership at Avon and beyond. He discusses the value of athletic resilience in sales, the evolution from individual contributor to C-suite executive, and his transition into fractional leadership and executive coaching. The conversation covers sales strategy, team building, leadership development, and helping professionals navigate career transitions.
Key Quotes
"The great salespeople are the ones that are resilient, the ones that can deal with rejection. It's less about knowing how to win—it's that they know how to lose."
"Your skills you get to keep. Your job you may not, but your skills are yours. Look for high volume sales jobs where you get practice and repetition."
"The biggest difference between coaching and advising is that when you're advising, the answer is not already in the room. Coaching is when the answer is in the room—you just have to help them unlock it."
Transcript
Hi, welcome to Tales From The Sky Lounge. It's a podcast about business consulting and venture investing. We get out there in the world and we talk to people who are making it happen and we get their stories. So today's guest in the Sky Lounge is Rich McVover. Hi Rich, hey Tod, how you doing? Doing well. Rich, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Who are you?
Well, as if you know accents, you'll know in two seconds I'm a New Yorker, born and bred here in New York. Grew up on Long Island and married my high school sweetheart. So I lived around the world and ended up living ten minutes away from where we grew up. Didn't expect that. But anyway, I'm a son of a coach. I played sports my whole life. I played lacrosse at Penn State. Penn State's a big part of my life. My wife went there, my sister, my brother, they married Penn Staters, my kids. So we got a lot of Penn State in our blood. I did that for four years, had a great time there. It's still a big part of my life. I'm sure it'll come out across during the conversation.
After that, I went into finance. CPA, big KPMG. I didn't think that was for me forever and got transitioned into a love for beauty products. Avon products. You know, the Avon lady. I was around there for a long time, learned a lot about business and leadership there. Had phenomenal bosses, phenomenal mentors in my life that has been incredibly important. Had a chance to see the world, had a chance to live in Hong Kong with my wife and I for a few years. Got into sales, sales management, sales strategy, leadership, et cetera.
And then since then I've always been in the sales and revenue area. Fortunate enough to work in some private equity portfolio companies as chief revenue officers for luxury products, jewelry, watches, but then also in home. And then after a number of years of doing chief sales officer, chief revenue officer, I was very fortunate to get a call from a good friend of mine, Bob, who's a partner at Texas EXO. He said you may want to consider fractional. I didn't even know what it was. I did a little research on it. It took me a while to come to this, but it sounds right. My only regret is I wish I would have started a year or two earlier. So I've been here now for a couple years, coming up with my two-year anniversary in a month. It's been really fantastic. I'm a chief revenue officer for a number of companies and an executive coach. I've got a number of clients not only with the practice but also with my own network. So I get to blend coaching as an executive coach as well as being a head of sales or chief revenue officer. It's been really great. I've really enjoyed it.
That's awesome. That's an awesome career. I don't know where to begin. So many cool things to talk about. Just means I'm old though, Todd. It just means I've been around for a lot. It means you're fun and you like Penn State. Oh yeah. So let's talk about athletics. A lot of people associate sales and athletic performance at a high level. I've had a number of different executives that have the preference. They love to hire those D1 college athletes that have been through the grist mill, know how to compete, know how to win, especially in the sales arena. What do you suppose that is? Or what is it about the athletic environment that kind of preps you for sales?
Want to go deeper?
Work With MeRelated Episodes
Ep24 Alan Gold—Sales, Marketing, and AI: How to Survive, Scale, and Avoid Stagnation
Alan Gold, a fractional CMO and sales consultant with 30+ years in technology marketing, discusses the evolving landscape of sales and marketing in the AI era. He covers M&A market dynamics, hiring and developing sales talent, the critical importance of strategy over tactics in marketing, and how companies can break through growth plateaus by finding adjacent markets and refining their differentiation.
Ep38—Louis Gump-Innovation, Timing, and Leadership: Whether You're an Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur
Lewis Gump, a fractional CEO/COO and author of 'Gorilla Marketing Tactic,' discusses his career building mobile and digital businesses at CNN and The Weather Channel, the critical differences between entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, and how founders can successfully transition into larger organizations post-acquisition. He emphasizes that innovation requires leadership commitment, cultural fit, and the ability to build bridges across diverse teams.
Ep32 Joe Gruca—From Pink Slip to Pivot: Predictable Sales in Unpredictable Markets
Joe Gruca shares his journey from corporate VP of Sales at Computer Associates to co-founding Higher IQ, an AI-powered interview automation platform, after being laid off in 2008. He discusses pivoting the business model, raising venture capital, successfully exiting, and now helping early-stage tech CEOs as a fractional revenue leader at Tech CXO. The conversation covers sales methodology evolution, startup lessons, and navigating economic uncertainty.